Self-Reflection and 2026 Outlook

Reflection

The past year has been a wild one. Not wild in the "I can't believe that happened" way but more like, it's strange to look back and see how much has quietly shifted. A year ago today, I'd just started a new job. My main goal was to learn as much as possible and get one certification. One of those was achieved. The important thing is that we're still here, still pushing forward with ideas, still trying to learn - but there have been some notable developments.

Claude Code

I can't even doomscroll on Instagram without seeing memes about it. It really is an engineering feat, and I've been slowly integrating it into my daily life. I do wonder if this marks a new shift in the programming paradigm. People always fight progression - as the famously saying goes, "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." I guess it's human nature to reject what feels unnatural. People believe code quality is going to rot, but I don't share that belief. Like most things, it comes down to how you use the tool. The people who used to Google a code question and paste the answer as their own are the same people letting AI tools do all the work for them. That's fine ... until something goes wrong and the tool can't fix it. But that doesn't come down to the tool itself. It comes down to the user.

Portfolio & Website Redesign

My newest plaything is Google's Stitch AI. I don't mean to brag, but if you're reading this it means my website and portfolio redesign went well. I always say I'm not a creative person but what I should say is I'm not good at designing things that look good from the top of my head. If you give me a vision though, I can bring it to life. So one of the real wins of the AI revolution is being able to get that initial spark of inspiration. I redesigned this website five times and honestly liked all five. I settled on this theme because the "&" in the heading looked cool — go check. Being able to just describe what you want and get a full design back is something else. This is what we put up with global warming all those years for. I don't see many people raving about Stitch yet, but it has changed how I think about design entirely. There's a full blog post on it coming soon.

Personal Life

My personal life has been more hectic than ever. Juggling four projects alongside a day job is something everyone should experience at least once - even if it's just to learn they should never do it again. I genuinely do need to find a better work-life balance. In all honesty, I haven't seen a friend in-person in as many months as there are a's in DAAAAAAAMN (Chris Tucker voice).

This is one of my favorite movies lol

So best believe one of the goals this year is focusing on family and loved ones. Not too many people talk about how the grind mindset can slowly deteriorate the relationships with those around you. That's how you get divorced. Jokes aside but I am working on reconnecting with those closest to me.

Outlook

My firm belief is that this year I will finish all of my many projects I have been putting off for years now. Not only that , I believe I will launch my own business too. Call it naivety, call it a dream, but I'm pushing harder than ever this year. Think of it as my all-or-nothing year. If I fail, I'll fail spectacularly. When I haven't dreaming about become an entrepreneur, I've also been diving deep into LLMs; inner workings, building my own agents, designing RAG workflows - all genuinely exciting stuff, and I plan to write about all of it. I don't think this blog will become anything more than a personal diary - just a place to store my thoughts and whatever cool things I stumble across along the way.

This year is looking to be one for the books.

“

"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."

”

— Samuel Beckett